A recent study shared how an algorithm was able to more accurately diagnose depression through people’s Instagram feed than doctors could through conventional methods.

You can find a brief overview of the study on Fortune.com here and to understand the potential scale of impact research like this could have, check the stats of Instagram on this HootSuite blog post here.

This is not an exhaustive podcast on the title thereof as there can be many aspects to the topic of individual influence on a team, but this is just an introspective view on a single experience I had this evening.

Individual Influence

This evening I had an experience that shook me. To be honest, I have had a rough day, at least I thought I had. It seemed that nothing I was doing was computing in my brain and after staring at the same spreadsheet for ages I gave in and opted to visit the market and see how things were going with our products.

I came back from that experience feeling mildly better but still a long way off the feel good high I woke up with.

I decided to try to engage in retail therapy but realising my goals on getting debt free I focused instead on just getting some grocery items. I had been at the store earlier in the day but our promoter had been on lunch I think so when he saw me in the store he came to greet me.

We got chatting about sales and business, I honestly was feeling a little impatient to get home and was expecting the same answers that other promoters earlier in the day had given us. The next 10mins however, revealed a man who was frustrated even more so than I was. I felt bad. How could I let myself feel so sorry for myself when my challenges required my attention so that this team member, now matter how remote from my day to day personal interaction he may be, could feel supported. Here was someone who was facing on a daily basis the issues we only predicted were happening.

We all play a part in a team and there is something each can do to help the load of one another.

Because of some lower back pain issues, I have been trying to loose some weight and strengthen muscles with daily exercise. What I have been finding though is that this is helping with managing my work stress.

Work Stress

It is normal to experience stress at work at some time or another and sometimes the work stress can be related to frustrations over obstacles that stop you meeting self-set goals.

I have found that starting the day with meeting an exercise goal has helped me get the day off on a feel good note.

Let us kick off today’s discussion with a current affairs event that applies to the topic of online security and that is the HBO, Game of Thrones hack.

HBO Hack

As The Verge is reporting, the hackers of HBO who supposed have 1.5TB of data from the entertainment company’s systems, have share more of the data they stole online and issued a ransom demand. Some of the data leaked include personal details of cast members from the popular series, Game of Thrones.

There are concerns that this could become a repeat of the Sony Pictures hack a few years ago if the hackers got off with more email data than the one senior executive’s emails that they appear to have currently.

Password Guidelines are not great

According to a report by Gizmodo, the person responsible for the guidelines which many websites use for your password creation criteria has apologized for issuing the guideline that has people creating passwords with a mix of caps and special characters that you cannot remember but a computer programme could run and resolve in two to three years tops.

Turns out that a passphrase of some length and even lacking special characters and random caps can be much harder for a computer to crack. Which brings the next point.

Personal Online Security

I don’t have all the answers but I can suggest that using a password management application like Lastpass is a good starting point. Don’t use the same password on multiple places and turn on two-factor authentication.

The truth is personal online security is tough and can often be complicated. We will dive into this subject more in the future.

This was meant to be Episode 027 but after a moment of forgetfulness, last weeks Photo Friday never got published as a podcast and so the published Episode 026 is this episode where I recap a point I made at the Tink Africa meetup where I stressed the point: You are not your customer.

Nigeria Market Size

Yudala’s MD made some points about the diversity of Nigeria that I wish to second. While many look at Nigeria and think 180 million people, the largest market in Africa, do not look closely enough a the diverse nature of Nigeria.

Nigeria is often split into three larger regions in tech circles. Lagos, the centre of the western Nigeria. Eastern Nigeria is often focused around Port Harcourt and the North defined by the capital of Abuja.

The reality is that Kano in the North is a very different market from the capital city of Abuja despite them often being grouped as the Northern region.

When you split the country like that, you start to see much smaller population groups that require different marketing and communication strategies to be really successful because of the different customer behaviour.

You are not your Customer

The point I made in response to a question on the TINK Africa panel discussion was that “you are not your customer”.

This is something I have learned particularly in Product Management. It is important that founders and product managers make sure that they truly understand their market and what is important to that target.

Listen to the podcast where I share some examples of what I mean like how Nigerian’s find places to eat.

This is just a short episode since I am not feeling well. Basically, I want to share two new items with you. Firstly about my friend Darryl Gibbs’s podcast on Anchor and secondly about the TINK Africa Meetup this Saturday.

Darryl Gibbs on Anchor

A former colleague and good friend, Darryl Gibbs, has kicked off his first podcast episode on Anchor today.

In addition to what looks to be an informative podcast, Darryl has a blog which sometimes shares some unique views and entertaining stories. I would suggest you check out his blog here.

TINK Africa Meetup

The event is a TINK Africa initiative and forms part of their mission to connect marketers and advertising agencies with consumer trends and disruptive innovation in Africa. You can find out more about this meet up here.

Following on from yesterday’s topic of Africa and technology, I figured it would be good to touch on what I think is one of the big tech wins for Africa and that is mobile money services like Mpesa.

The IMF has a report from 2014 that looks at the penetration of various financial services in the different regions globally. You can find it here.

Lets look at Mobile Money in Africa

Mpesa, the mobile money service launched by Safaricom in 2007, is by far the biggest player on the continent in the mobile money space. Many have tried to migrate it to other markets but in South Africa for example, Mpesa has failed twice.

Normally I apologise for the background noise in my podcasts but today I will not be apologetic as I talk about what tech is like in Africa. I think the droning generator noise makes a good background for such a topic.

Africa Lite

Many people in business experience Africa for the first time as a trip to South Africa, usually to Johannesburg and it’s economic powerhouse suburb of Sandton, the supposedly majestic mountain in the middle of the Mother City, Cape Town.

These visitors leave thinking Africa is not so bad and a land full of opportunities.

While they are not wrong about the opportunities, their perception of the infrastructure and development of Africa cannot be measured by a short stop in SA.

One person who is not in the dark about what real Africa is like, is Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai who was in Nigeria last week for a special Google event. You can find the details of what was announced on Google’s Africa blog here.

The truth is that Africa has great opportunities but requires a lot of work. Over fifty countries with their own regulations and practices make for a much tougher market than the single country, billion plus population markets of maybe India.